Ira Lunan Ferguson

He was married twice. He and his second wife, who was White, lived in Birmingham, Alabama, and attended the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church. After the infamous fire bombing of the church in September 1963, he and his wife decided to leave the South and settled in San Francisco, where there was less racial tension and interracial marriage was more accepted. He had an office on Clement Street in the Avenues, and his wife preceded him in death. He was a prolific author with a larger-than-life personality, and continued to study and write until his death in 1992.

Ira Lunan Ferguson, B.A., B.Sc., M.A., M.Sc., Ph.D., LL.B. (born Ira Lunan Lamontanio Ferguson; January 27, 1904 – 1992) was an American psychologist and author of multiple autobiographies as well as several novels and many published essays and journal articles. He is perhaps best known for his autobiographical trilogy, I Dug Graves at Night to Attend College by Day (1968–70).

Ferguson was born in Jamaica, British West Indies, on January 27, 1904. In 1919, he was sent to the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia for treatment and correction of his very poor eyesight. He was classified as "functionally blind," as his vision could be only partially corrected. Nevertheless, he said: "I always felt I was only half blind, and never considered myself handicapped." He lived in the United States for the remainder of his life.